Inner Voices
Image: Damien Strouthos
Photo: Anna Gardiner
Louis Nowra’s Inner Voices focuses on King Ivan VI of Russia as a child locked in a dungeon. He can only speak his name, nothing else. The play follows his imagined release by some desperate and power-hungry soldiers, who, along with an array of controlling voices, teach him and groom him to reign.
Actress Emily Goddard is playing two characters in this production, Princess Ali and Babyface. She has played two characters in one performance before, and believes playing characters that aren’t central to the play is more complex than one thinks.
“There’s a lot of pressure to establish the character quickly, to come on and affect the world, and be gone,” she explained.
Goddard is in awe of how extraordinary this play actually is. She told City Hub: “It swings unapologetically between tragedy and farce and is wonderfully theatrical, vivid but also deeply confronting.”
“Much of it and its characters, like Ivan’s mind, defy logical reasoning. It will be a production for the senses, an intense and experiential journey. With some pretty great death scenes.”
What Goddard loves about this performance is the fact the ideas and themes can be raised in current society.
“I’m loving working on one of Nowra’s earliest works, with such rich characters and wild ideas, that also raises questions which are utterly relevant to our Australia here and now,” she said.
“At a time of uncertainty and unrest, and lately sheer bewilderment at the extent of our greed, we are pressured to ask ‘how did we get here and, more disturbingly, how did our leaders?’” (AMal)
Jun 15–Jul 9 (Tue-Sat 7.30pm, Sun 5pm). Old Fitz Theatre, 129 Dowling Street, Woolloomooloo. $28-$38. Tickets & info: oldfitztheatre.com/inner-voices
BY ATHINA MALLIS
